Wedge was certainly considered to be the front-runner for the Pirates job given his ties with Neal Huntington, and the more seemingly-less qualified candidates the Bucs interviewed, the more I thought Wedge was going to end up with the job. I was probably hoping for that as well, but we did know that a number of other teams were going after Wedge. It’s slightly unfortunate that the Pirates “lost out” on him (or didn’t want him particularly badly, we’ll never know), but he would have been a good fit – not a match made in heaven or anything. No reason to panic.

Meanwhile, two more names were added to the list of interviewees over the past few days. Dale Sveum, a former Pirate, has been on the Brewers’ staff for the last five years–most recently as the hitting coach. Sveum has coached in the Pirates organization before: he managed Altoona from 2001-2003. He interviewed on Wednesday.

A less familiar character was in Pittsburgh for an interview on Thursday: Carlos Tosca. Tosca has just been named Atlanta’s bench coach under new manager Fredi Gonzalez, but apparently he might not remain in that role for long. Tosca managed the Blue Jays for parts of a couple seasons, and has since been part of the coaching staffs in Arizona and Florida. He’s also managed for 17 years in the minors.

I’ve been kind of glossing over these other candidates, but now that Wedge is out of the equation, this is going to become a lot more interesting. I honestly don’t even know who to call the favorite at this point. We’ll certainly continue to follow the situation and keep you updated as best we can.